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Dessert

Cranberry Sauce

A sauce made from cranberries, boiling water, and sugar, cooked until soft and sweetened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pick over and wash the cranberries.

  2. Add the boiling water, cover, and cook slowly until very soft; then remove from heat.

  3. Add the sugar and stir until thoroughly dissolved.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Cranberries
Supply the tart flavor and the fruit body that the sauce is built from.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the sharp tartness of the cranberries.
Boiling water
Provides moisture that softens the berries as they cook.

The step that matters

Cook until very soft. Cranberry skins and cell walls only break down fully with sustained gentle heat, releasing pectin that gives the sauce body. Stopping early leaves the berries firm and the sauce thin, so cook covered and slowly until they are completely soft before removing from heat.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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